I Don't Mean to Offend. I Am Smart But..Help Me Out

I would like to post a conversation I just had on Google+. I understand how my statements may sound offensive but I see things as I see it. My opinion is not unheard of but I am not saying it is fact. However, my issue really isnt about what I said it is about the response it received from a guy who didn't like what I said but posted his opinions. I don't understand them and I was wondering if someone could explain what he means by his definition of consciousness and "objective reality"

Me-Many people are superstitious and will have their religions. They will believe things and blindly "drink the koolaid" if they are offered anything that is better than everlasting death of themselves and their loved ones. This is just my opinion. Just think about it. You, the very essence of you has a finale. And some people don't want to believe that. Some people will appear to claim to have telepathy and can speak to this invisible person (hallucination) they believe watches over them and what they do (paranoia) which by the way is the same theme as Santa Claus. Key in "You better watch out. You better not cry" . And some make bargains (prayer/telepathy) to obey and be good so it wont send them to the scary place. Oh and get no gifts like a mansion in the clouds. Looks cool but i don't know how that works. My point is it keeps me in awe how weird our culture is and how far behind we are from other cultures (overseas) who understand evolution and will accept it as a more factual explanation of we became and how we die."

Him-Personality and memory will (almost certainly) end. Those things are not "the very essence of you." Nor are they consciousness.

What I was talking about before, which was different from that, was the fact that we cannot model consciousness and so have no business thinking we know much about it. There's an unbridgeable qualia gap. We have no reason, looking at objective reality and all its processes including those occurring in the brain, to conclude that subjective consciousness should be occurring at all. As I said, in objective reality there is no I and there is no You -- there is only he, she, and it. We can describe all kinds of things about how the brain functions, but no one has ever posited any hypothesis about how any of this gives rise to someone inside -- an "I" -- experiencing anything subjectively. And I would suggest that no one ever will, that it is impossible.

As consciousness cannot emerge from brain activity by any conceivable mechanism, it must pre-exist brain activity, at least as a potential, and be a fundamental characteristic of existence comparable to space or time.

Do I believe that consciousness (although not memory or personality) endures beyond death? Yes. I as an individual will not, but I as an individual am an illusion anyway, a kind of distorted mirror thrown up by my brain. I -- the real I -- am the cosmos, and the cosmos was here before this body was born and will still be here, experiencing reality through all vehicles available (of which at the moment this body is one), after this body dies.

For a long time, Greg, I saved Paynton's comment, from another thread, where he called me an asshole, just in case anyone needed a REAL example of rude, but I seem to have tossed it as irrelevant - sorry, now you'll never now --

I actually introduce myself these days as an asshole when I meet people, so they have no excuse when I say or do something that may offend their gentle sensitivities.

Back in the day when I earned a living, I was a very accomplished human engineer. Succeeding in the marketplace is best done with a utility belt full of psychological tools. Getting people to do what you want them to do and think it's their idea is almost an art form.

These days I'm not concerned about peoples opinion of me, some like me some don't, I sleep just fine. My friend Jake use to say: "Take me as I am because that's who I am." Me too. :D

Why are you here? Do you have nothing better to do than pick on nice polite people? "You have a finite life, don't waste it pursuing stupid." Give it all you've got, knock yourself out, I'll eat you for breakfast.

Obviously you can't read. The one who is exposed as to having a closed mind is you.

You seem more interested in talking than listening - having figured out the whole world have you in your infinite wisdom? Can't find a reasonable argument to make, so you just make fun of people who may not share your view instead? Sounds like the same prejudice the fundies have against those who disagree with their world view. You are simply cut from the same cloth of close-mindedness as they are.

False wisdom comes from those who claim to be wise - their mark is a closed mind.